RHIFF VENUE PROGRAM LINEUP DETAILS

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Prizes, Giveaways, Special Guests, Music & Films

All RHIFF Films Are Premiere Engagements, Premiere Pricing in Effect at the Bloor Cinema NB All screenings are in Block Programs. Each Block is one price for all films in that Block

Wristbands at Door $12 Film Salon Only, $25 Film Salon & Party

GLADSTONE HOTEL 1214 Queen Street West RHIFF Opening Gala

Wednesday June 22 Doors @ 8PM

Lasse Raa, Norway Recode

A video written in DNA, the 2^nd of video installations by Norwegian artist Lasse Raa, an Art College teacher in Oslo. Lasse got in touch with RHIFF via email and we talked about his film. I asked him to send it along. I thought this would be great with all the interest in DNA courtesy of all CSI-ers strangling our TV programming these days. What happens when you are fascinated by machine code and genetic code. What happens is: you put together and incredible brain tickling film. I’m sure I saw things one only sees while on peyote or during a Rorshach test. I was mesmerized while I was inside the layers of a string of code, a blood sample and a fun audio groove...

Eric Booth, USA Forbidden Fruit

Eric says his film tells the story of: “A transgender female in love with a drug addicted, alcoholic heterosexual man who takes care of him in hopes that he will one day fall in love with her. When her lover’s illegitimate son drops in on them unexpectedly, her whole world is turned upside down.”

I asked Eric for his film. I had recently worked on Christian’s Story a film by Francisco Corroy-Moral a tiny film about the true story of a gay latino male who fled from a good [closeted] life in his home to Canada to live a life free of prejudice from being a gay man in Mexico. Any story on gay, lesbian, transgender stories is important. It’s a world that not many people get to know. Look past any production standards of Forbidden Fruit and feel the story Eric has to tell. It’s complicated like all of our lives and absorbing.

David DiSabatino, USA Frisbee: The Life And Death Of A Hippie Preacher

FRISBEE recounts the life of a radical hippie turned Christian evangelist whose call into the ministry came while involved in the Laguna Beach homosexual scene. Even though he was the spark who propelled two of the largest evangelical denominations in the last thirty years into existence, he was treated with contempt throughout his career because of his sexuality. What do you do when the Jesus freak who starts your church dies from AIDS? Simple. Erase him from history.

Short listed 3 times at RHIFF. It lost out in the final round to the main RHIFF program, but we had to play it. All is fair in love and war & Frisbee!

Debra Hussong, USA Cut, Human Shield, Battered Bruised & Broken

Debra originally got in touch with our RHIFF submissions coordinator Tracy. We liked the sound of all 3 shorts, so we asked her to send along her films

Human Shield

63-year old ex-schoolteacher, Faith Fippinger speaks candidly and emotionally about her experience living with the Iraqi people just before, during and after the 2003 United States invasion.

"My decision to become a human shield in Iraq had to do with the fact I understand the consequences of war on innocent people who are caught between an evil dictator and the ambitions of another government. The people in Iraq have already suffered terribly from wars, sanctions and of course Saddam Hussein. I wanted to stand beside them in solidarity to help stop this war which I felt was unjust, illegal and unnecessary."

Cut

Experimental 16 mm narrative student short that weaves a very tight web into the world of a young woman who expresses her vulnerability through obsession of her long, black, beautiful hair.

Battered Bruised & Broken

“I remember listening to Lynn Mison talk about being abused by her ex-husband,” Ms. Hussong said. “But, when Lynn said her ex-husband murdered her children in order to get back at her for leaving him, I was so overwhelmed I felt dizzy and powerless.”

Debra hopes Lynn’s story, one of 14 accounts of family violence told in “Battered, Bruised and Broken,” will engage viewers from every community around the globe

so family violence is dealt with head on instead of being kicked under the rug.

Debra goes on to say: “Family Violence feels so raw to me. There is no doubt in my mind that producing this film has changed the course of my own life. There are no parameters [where violence is acceptable].”

RHIFF Venue Wristbands $10 Film Salon Only
[Food & Drink Extra]

RHIFF Venue Wristbands $20 Film Salon & Party
[Food & Happy Hour Drinks Included]

PLAZA FLAMINGO 423 College Street RHIFF Latin Night

Thursday June 23 Doors @ 9PM

Hari Das, India/Canada The Photo

The 2 children in this film have very good chemistry. The subject matter illustrates how innocence can be destroyed in the blink of an eye. THE PHOTO, which won first prize in Boston Motion Picture Awards competition is a touching drama about two innocent children in an isolated Indian village. The film, based on a controversial story by eminent Malayalam writer Mukundan, touched the hearts and minds of viewers in prior screenings.

J. Plunky Branch, USA/Cuba Under The Radar: A Survey Of Afro-Cuban Music

The Programmers notes on this film mentioned that the people Mr Branch came to interview and intetmix with were aiming high by believing that they could change foreign policy through education and music. Under the Radar introduces viewers to the distinct music of Cuba and surveys the enigmatic island’s current music scene by following J. Plunky Branch [the films producer], and his interactions and collaborations with Afro-Cuban musicians and rappers such as David Murray, Craig Harris, Hamiet Bluiett and hip-hop producer Sir Fire. Shot on location in 2001, the footage is now all the more rare, given new, tighter travel restrictions recently put in place by the US Treasury Department.

James Walley, USA Titanic II

A young woman obsessed with "Titanic," and identifyingto an almost unhealthy degree with the heroine of the latter, gets achance to play that part to the hilt when she meets a free-spirited butpenniless young man who works as a janitor at a Titanic artifactexhibition. But life has a way of not QUITE working out like it does inHollywood blockbusters... "Look Ma I'm on top of the World, my film is showing at the RHIFF!"

Walter Stewart, USA Sweet Deadly Dreams

Walter’s film is chock full of character actors like Roscoe Lee Brown (Logan's Run, The Cosby Show), Bill Cobbs (Ghosts Of Mississippi; Hudsucker Proxy) John Ashton (Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run) and Quinn Redecker who most know from The Young and the Restless and Days of our Lives, but who many don’t know is actually an Academy Award® winning co-writer of the Deer Hunter. Sweet Deadly Dreams is a classic maze of intrigue, deception, and death, You have to hang on until the very end of this film…where you should be for every film noir inspired story.

RHIFF Venue Wristbands $10 Film Salon Only
[Food & Drink Extra]

RHIFF Venue Wristbands $20 Film Salon & Party
[Food & Happy Hour Drinks Included]

BANZAI SUSHI 134 Peter Street RHIFF French Night

Friday June 24 Doors @ 9PM

Nancy Heikin USA/France Manana

Manana is about procrastination or, how the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Marie wonders why people find it so hard to be “good.” Seeing her neighbor is sick, she decides that buying her flowers would make her “good.” But this simple gesture turns out to be difficult to accomplish, what with all the stresses of life, and the ideal of goodness more elusive than she thought. Nancy is an actress choreographer at La Mama ETC in New York This is her first film as a director.

Michele Gales, France Another Tale Of Two Cities

'Another Tale of Two Cities' is a musical and impressionistic study of urban issues, recounting recent dramatic transformations in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris and in Spitalfields-Whitechapel in London. Three chapters from Dickens' novel, 'Recalled to Life', 'The Golden Thread' and 'The Track of the Storm', correspond to three aspects of our enquiry : urban regeneration, historic preservation, community participation. A patchwork, a pageant, a puzzle, a plea.

Rina Fernandez, USA Jayson

Thomas Simon, Austria Walkabout

Follow Thomas as he winds through New York City, Austria, Brasil, Nepal and India. Kind of a groovy musical version of “Where’s Waldo”, this film explores the meaning of music across different cultures as Simon finds his direction in life. Join the journey, see the differences, discover the similarities, feel the music.Peace and percussions. Get inspired to give back to the world. Where’s my yoga mat…

RHIFF Venue Wristbands $10 Film Salon Only
[Food & Drink Extra]

RHIFF Venue Wristbands $20 Film Salon & Party
[Food & Happy Hour Drinks Included]

SOUTHERN ACCENT
Cajun, Creole & Soul Restaurant
595 Markham Street

RHIFF Fiesta Finale

Saturday June 25 Doors @ 8PM

Lou Mason, USA No. Not Dillon!

More Conversations on the 'Dillon!' ... 'Did you see that show? That one with the baby?' 'Excuse me - did you knock?' 'The one with the baby - you know? The baby - turns on the television?' 'I'm eating my lunch here. Aren't you the guy I told to go to two-fifty?' 'This is the two fifty - and the baby gets his eyeballs blasted and the guy has two personalities?' Is there a point to this? '-Two personalties - and the woman likes the wrong one?' How can there be a wrong one? I mean - I want to ask you - I'm pretty complex - deep -myself you know. If Howard Stern had a TV kids show, Richard Dreyfuss, never discovered “The Method”, and Christina Applegate had a look-a-like sister that was a modern day Mary Tyler Moore up and coming producer; that would be a smidgen of what’s going on in this screwball comedy film out of Rochester New York. There is a “4^th wall break” that has marvelous timing…

Christopher Banks, New Zealand A Quiet Night In

B-movie madness ensues when would-be novelist Jess Bartlett stages a “quiet night in” to finish her new book, fuelled by endless glasses of red wine and her favorite board game, “Cluedo”. But the path to creative perfection is never easy, and as Jess moves her pieces into place, her life will unravel before your eyes in an hilarious web of confusion as she becomes trapped inside her house with a troubled footballer, a manic TV advice show host, a randy old author and an unseen chicken. The stakes are higher than she realises, for before the night is out, Jess will be forced to question her worth as a writer, a human being – and whether she should have made pizza for dinner. John Waters colors meet Friends in a parallel universe. We are proud to say this one caused a lot of arguments during programming for RHIFF. Some of our programmers are still missing…Hmmm.

Franks Elkins, USA Mental Health

Sanity runs awry when four reality-challenged eccentrics become involved with Dr. Will Power and his pop-psychology radio program, 'Mental Health'. Ted is a 'wanna-be' serial bomber suffering from delusions of grandeur and low self-esteem. Ryan is tormented by the sound of voices whenever the scent of pizza wafts in his direction. Don sits alone and isolated, surrounded by the clutter of a house he hasn't left in three years. And Sarah, who thinks every bump in the road is proof of another casualty, is driving herself crazy – literally! This is among the Programmers ‘guilty pleasures’ fun, offbeat and has some great one-liners.

Lawrence Bridges, USA 12

The Greek Gods are alive and well and living in a supermarket parking lot in Los Angeles. A half-sister and brother, illegitimate offspring of Zeus, must find a play fated by their father and perform it for the gods" amusement. If they do not act well, they will die.12 is a guerrilla drive-in film, in which the projectionist displays the movie on a wall in a parking lot and sends the audio to your car radio through a low-power FM transmitter. Lawrence Bridges spent approximately 12 years in production and post-production on this movie, hence the title, 12.

RHIFF Venue Wristbands $10 Film Salon Only
[Food & Drink Extra]

RHIFF Venue Wristbands $20 Film Salon & Party
[Food & Happy Hour Drinks Included]